Trying to come up with something new I ran across Momonoki, a blow your marbles Chinese restaurant, a two star Michelin neighborhood place. This is one of the first Chinese restaurants I’ve tried with decent disposable wooden hashi, and an effort made for the presentation of the knife and fork and a sauce spoon – nicely done.

So you walk into a restaurant almost blind folded and your two kids are ants in their pants, as you stand in a two star Michelin. I ask for the menu, the menu is in Japanese, and reading it was going to be a challenge.

I asked for an English menu and no chance! The waiter glares at me, frozen and says, “Eigo no menyūnō eigo menyū” and I get it – no English menu. I don’t hesitate and point to the menu first item asking for a reading.

He stares at me with his round eyes, and I can tell he’s not Japanese, glaring in some kind of zone I get the feeling I am in deep shit. Yes, I landed a Chinese bloke, a new waiter sent over to test the waters of three gaijin, two are children. When I asked to translate the entire menu he nearly had a nervous breakdown. But we went through the menu and he wasn’t stumped, and could barely decipher what he was saying with his heavy accent.

So lets just put it this way, the food speaks for itself and I managed to order so much food that the chef kept asking if we were full. My kids ate like hell and each course was more interesting than the one before. What I found fascinating were the colors of the Zha Cai, the pale green color and no artificial coloring.

These were exquisite Sichuan preserved Chinese pickles made from mustard tuber. The pickled, rather strange-looking stem of a special kind of mustard cabbage from Sichuan, the Brassica juncea var. These fist-sized bulby stems are rubbed with plenty of salt, and then pressed with weights to slowly release its moisture. Then they are dried, rubbed with red-hot chili paste and left to ferment in big earthenware jars. This process is pretty similar to the way Koreans make kimchi and the taste and texture is a bit like pickled cucumber.

The dim sum is the common denominator (comfort food) of all Chinese foods, and each time I try it, I feel a sense of disappointment. It’s not that I don’t appreciate dim sum, it’s just that I find dim sum so ordinary. This time I was blown away by the seafood paste, it was so vibrant and the dough was translucent just the way it should be.

The next dishes were some concoction of a crazy inventive mind and the chef offered us a dish that looked like it would burn your pants off, not your socks. Deep friend ‘nasu”, Japanese eggplant buried in Sichuan peppers by the hundreds. The end result was not spicy at all – just an illusion.

Then a salad that could have been made by a French bistro, it was a pleasant surprise to say the least after thinking the next dish would be more fried foods. The salad had fresh skinless almonds that added some a smooth contrast to the green salad.

Next a dish that looked like it was swimming in red chili oil, and I had to offer some to my kids, but warn them it could place them in a red-hot zone of no return. Another surprise, a bowl of red chili oil, mildly hot and there was boiled chicken and the most extraordinary toasted peanuts and fresh green herbs – superb!

Then the most unusual mapodofu, a pork braised in pool of fired a red chili, yet the taste wasn’t an intense as we thought. This is popular Chinese dish from Sichuan province and this time the chef used premium pork.

The food continued to flow and flow and we continued to watch in awe when a slow cooked pork belly appeared dressed in total black – wow.

The evening was a real surprise and its like being in the dinning room of a Chinese chef where you can hear the fire roaring. This is a chef to watch and admire – his talent reminds me of Chen a one star, real talent, the only one star in Paris but he unfortunately passed away – a nice call Alain.

Momonoki
2-17-29 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo
http://www.mitamachi-momonoki.com
T.03-5443-1309

Restaurant CHEN Paris
15 rue du Théâtre 75015 Paris
T. 01 45 79 34 34